In the Heart of Darkness

by Reinke, Sara

  “You’re wrong,” Nikolić said. “I do need Dr. Averay. I need you both. But do not mistake me for a fool, Dr. Morin. I’ll kill her in a heartbeat—in front of you, right here and now—if you do not…how do you say it? Back the fuck off.”

  “Mason,” Edith pleaded in a soft, hiccupping voice. “Please…!”

  He realized for the first time that she wore something around her neck: a dark band of thick, molded plastic to which a series of small black boxes had been affixed. It looked for all of the world like some kind of electronic training collar, the kind used to shock dogs when they’d bark, and the furious cleft between Mason’s brows deepened all the more.

  “What is that?” he demanded, pointing at it.

  “It’s a little something my man, Vučko, here put together,” Nikolić said, with a nod at Scarred Guy. “A collar that generates electromagnetic pulses. Short-range, of course, so it won’t blow out any of our computers or appliances when it’s activated. But if you try to use a cellphone…”

  “Or my telepathy.” Mason’s brows narrowed, his mouth turned down in a frown. Now he understood what Scarred Guy—or Vučko, as Nikolić had called him—had been holding in the hotel room. Electromagnetic fields disrupted the psionic abilities of the Brethren; anything that generated a big enough current would do the trick, and Mason had found that in working at hospitals for a living—with MRI machines, CT scanners, and other high-tech pieces of equipment that emitted high doses of electromagnetism, both his telepathy and telekinesis were stifled as a result.

  Nikolić beamed. “Da, yes, exactly. It won’t work. I cannot permit you and Dr. Averay to sneak about in my mind—or to speak together between yours. It uses a built-in lithium-polymer battery and can last three hundred hours or more without charging. But there’s more…”

  He nodded once, giving Vučko permission to speak. “I put fail-safe in,” Vučko said, his one eye squinting with malicious pride, his English more choppy and broken than his leader’s. As Nikolić jerked Edith’s head back, he pointed to a pair of the boxes mounted onto her collar. “C4 in here.”

  “C4 is a type of explosive,” Nikolić interjected. “Basically cyclotrimethylene trinitramine with plasticizing agents and solvent mixed in.”

  “I know what it is.” Mason closed his hands into fists. Slowly.

  “It’s very stable,” Nikolić said. “You need a detonator to set it off.” He gave Edith a push and she stumbled forward, wincing as she touched the back of her head gingerly. Holstering the gun again, Nikolić pulled something out of his hip pocket—a small handheld device that looked for all the world like a TV remote control. “This detonator, as a matter of fact.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Mason seethed again.

  “I have one for you, too, Dr. Morin,” Nikolić said. “I should warn you they’re wired to manually trigger the detonator should you try to take them off, or disable them in any way. In other words…” He dropped Mason a wink as Vučko stepped forward, an assault rifle in one hand, and another collar in the other. “You fuck with it, it fucks you back.”

  “You’re not putting that thing on me,” Mason said. His words—and attention—were directed at Nikolić, so when Vučko swung the butt of his rifle around, it caught him completely off guard. The stock of the Zastava M84 caught him in the side of the head, smashing into his temple and sending him floundering sideways. He crashed to the floor and lay in a heap, knocked senseless.

  “Mason!” Edith cried.

  He groaned, tasting blood in his mouth, as Vučko grabbed a fistful of his hair and wrenched his head back. He felt Vučko shove the collar down over his head, then cinch it tightly, the little box—the electromagnetic pulse generator—resting snugly against his Adam’s apple.

  “I feel we’ve started out on the wrong foot,” Nikolić said, as Vučko turned loose of Mason’s hair, leaving him to crumple to the floor again, gasping for breath. “If we’re all to work together, then we should be friends, no?”

  “I’m not…working with you,” Mason said, lifting his head, feeling blood dribble down his nose.

  “Not you directly, no,” Nikolić conceded. “You see, you’re not a research scientist. I read your dossier. You’re a physician—a surgeon. It’s Dr. Averay’s laboratory experience, her expertise that I need.”

  “For what?” Mason demanded, grasping the table and staggering to his feet. His head swam, and he gritted his teeth, pressing the heel of his hand to his brow. “This ‘deal’ between you and Phillip?”

  “I told you,” Nikolić said. “Phillip died before fulfilling his part of the bargain. That doesn’t mean my interest in seeing his work completed died with him. Quite the contrary, in fact. I’ve never been more eager to see the eventual fruits of our labors than ever.”

  “His work?” Mason glanced at Edith in bewilderment. “What the hell is he talking about?”

  “I don’t know.” Edith shook her head helplessly. “I keep telling him that—he won’t listen! Phillip never mentioned any research he was collaborating on with Diadem Global, or with anyone.”

  “Diadem?” Mason jerked in surprise. He’d overheard his father talking with Augustus Noble about a company called Diadem Global on more than one occasion. They’d found business cards inside Aaron Davenant’s rental car in Lake Tahoe with the company name on them, along with one of Aaron’s aliases—Broughman. He turned to Edith again, straining to reach her telepathically, but the goddamn collar muffled him completely.

  “Diadem Global is an umbrella corporation controlled by Lamar Davenant,” he said, and Edith’s eyes widened again.

  “Phillip was working with the Davenants?” she asked, visibly stunned.

  “Sure as hell sounds that way,” Mason said, adding darkly, “And I wish I could say that was a surprise.” With a wince, he tried to straighten his stance and stare down Nikolić. “And I bet I know on what, too: synthetic versions of select enzymes in our blood. I’ve got a copy of a chemical analysis performed on some by the FBI’s labs out of Quantico. If that’s what you want—if all you’re after is how to make the shit—I can get it for you right now. Just give me a computer with internet access so I can get to my email. You don’t need Edith.”

  “You know about the juice, then?” Nikolić said. “Good. That will save me some time in explaining.” His mouth stretched in a thin, menacing smile. “That’s not what I want. That’s folly compared to my ultimate objective, the one that Phillip promised to help me achieve. And the one that you, Dr. Averay, are going to pursue.”

  One of Nikolić’s men grabbed Mason from behind, clamping a strong hand against the nape of his neck and shoving his head down to the table.

  “Mason!” Edith cried as his cheek mashed against the tabletop. He could see Nikolić out of his peripheral vision, again holding the remote control device in his hand; this time, pointed directly at Mason.

  “I almost forgot…” Nikolić said with a broad smile. “I had Vučko program a ten-second delay in the explosives. When they’re armed, a brief alarm sounds…”

  He pressed a button on the remote control, and Mason heard a loud, shrill beep from just below his chin—from his collar.

  “No…!” Edith gasped.

  “…and you have ten seconds before detonation,” Nikolić finished.

  “He’s bluffing,” Mason hissed to Edith through gritted teeth.

  “Nine seconds,” Nikolić said casually. “It’s up to you, Dr. Averay. I can disarm the devices easily with this…” He waggled the remote control at her. “Do we have an agreement?”

  “Edith, don’t!” Mason seethed. “He’s full of shit. He blows me up, he takes this whole place down, too.”

  “Oh, no,” Nikolić said. “You misunderstand, Dr. Morin. The amount of C4 used in each of your devices is negligible, producing a blast radius of…what do you think, Vučko? Five feet? More or less?” When Vučko half-nodded, half-shrugged, Nikolić said, “So you see, the damage would be minimal…to everyone but you. Especially
since we’re going to move out of your range.”

  With this, he seized Edith by the arm and started dragging her toward the door. Her eyes had widened, her face ashen.

  “No!” she cried. “Wait—Mason!”

  “Five seconds, Dr. Averay,” Nikolić said. “Four…three…”

  “Edith, don’t,” Mason pleaded again. “For God’s sake…!”

  “Two…” said Nikolić, and Edith burst into tears.

  “Yes!” she cried, staring at Mason, helpless and anguished. “Yes, I’ll finish Phillip’s work. I’ll do whatever you want! Please just turn it off! Turn it off!”

  Nikolić smiled again, pressing another button. This time, Mason heard a low, buzzing sound and felt the collar vibrate briefly against his skin. And then nothing.

  “Thank you both for your cooperation,” Nikolić said wanly. His smile stretched wide, his cheeks straining, as if they’d split open along invisible seams. “I think this is…how do you say it? The start of a beautiful friendship.”

  * * *

  Neither Mason nor Edith may have been able to summon their telepathy, but Nikolić and his men seemed to. Either that, or Nikolić had them all well-heeled; with little more than a nod from him, Scarred Guy and another of his goons came into the room, moving around either side of the dinette table. As they approached Edith, she shrank in her seat in visible terror. When they grabbed her roughly, one holding each arm, and hauled her from the chair, she cried out: “Mason!”

  “Edith!” he shouted, but a guard still held him pinned to the table by the scruff of his neck. Mason struggled, but couldn’t break free. Fists balled, he struck the table furiously. “You bastards! Where are you taking her?”

  “She’ll be fine, Dr. Morin,” Nikolić said, his voice oddly soothing.

  “Where are you taking her?” Mason demanded again. He caught one last glimpse of Edith as they dragged her out the door, then it swung shut behind them.

  “Someplace safe,” Nikolić replied, and with another nod from him, the guard released his iron-clad grip on Mason’s neck. “Someplace close by…where she can start to work right away.”

  Mason straightened slowly, grimacing as he rubbed the back of his neck. When he glanced at Nikolić, puzzled and suspicious, Nikolić laughed again.

  “Where did you think Dr. Averay would be working? Look at this place. There’s no laboratory here.”

  “Why don’t you just send her to one of Diadem’s facilities?” Mason asked. “Better still—why not just ask one of their researchers to finish Phillip’s work? You’ve already got connections with them—you’re Lamar Davenant’s bitch. Why do you need Edith and Pharmaceaux at all?”

  Nikolić chuckled. “You are a most perceptive man, Dr. Morin. Nothing gets by you without your notice. I like you.”

  “Yeah? The feeling’s not mutual,” Mason replied, angling his body in the hopes that Nikolić wouldn’t notice how heavily he had to lean on the chair for support. “So what now? You going to lock me up in the trunk of your car again or something until Edith finishes whatever the fuck you want done?”

  “Oh, no.” Nikolić pretended to look wounded. “I told you already—I like you. And I have a business opportunity for you. That’s why I’ve sent Dr. Averay away, so you and I can talk.”

  “I thought I was just insurance.”

  “Da.” Nikolić nodded. “But I’m prepared to give you the chance to be something more. To do something more.”

  Mason narrowed his brows. “What do you mean?”

  Nikolić’s smile widened, Cheshire catlike. “Here. Let me show you.”

  * * *

  Nikolić opened a door at the far end of the kitchen. Cool, musty air wafted out, and when Nikolić flipped a switch along the inner wall beyond the threshold, a single naked bulb flickered to life. Mason glimpsed stone walls and rickety wooden stairs; he heard the first of these creak under the strain of Nikolić’s weight as started down them.

  “Come with me,” he called to Mason.

  Mason had no idea what to expect in the cellar of this dilapidated house, but what he found was probably close to the last on the proverbial list. The change in odors was his first clue; the pervasive, damp stink of the cellar yielded to something fouler, like rotten meat, about halfway down the stairs. At the bottom, surrounded by listing shelves lined with dusty, unlabeled glass jars of home-canned vegetables was a young man lying on an old ping pong table, a bullet hole in his shoulder. He’d been there long enough for infection to set in; his face was sweat-glossed and feverishly aglow, his breathing shallow and ragged. The wound itself was covered in relatively clean bandages, but the man’s arm from below his bicep was swollen, a mottled, misshapen mess of purple and maroon-colored flesh.

  “This is Piotr,” Nikolić said. “As you can see, he is in need of medical attention.”

  “Jesus.” Mason sucked a hissing breath in through his teeth.

  “He was shot three days ago,” Nikolić continued. “My medic, he got the bullet out, sewed him up. But the infection…it got trapped in there. Before we knew it, he was bad off.”

  Mason stepped hesitantly toward the table. Another solitary light bulb dangled overhead, this one the coiled florescent variety that at least provided a brighter circumference of illumination.

  The young man was mercifully unconscious, his entire body shuddering with febrile chills. A thin sheet had been drawn up to cover him, leaving only his infected arm exposed. There were no gloves, but Mason took a corner of the sheet and used it to gently touch the man’s elbow. He winced, feeling the crackling sensation of fluid shifting beneath the skin. At even this light prodding, the young man jerked on the tabletop, his face twisting with pain.

  Gas gangrene, Mason deduced. It set in fast, usually following some sort of trauma that resulted in vascular insufficiency in a limb. It looked to him like a piece of shrapnel from the bullet, or maybe a bone fragment from the impact, had obstructed one of the branches from the left subclavian artery—the blood vessel responsible for supplying blood to the arm. With blood unable to get to the man’s arm, the tissue had started to die and gangrene had set in. At best, such an obstruction would cost him his arm; at worst, if the necrosis in his arm was too advanced, it could kill him.

  “This man needs to be in the hospital,” Mason told Nikolić.

  “I can’t do that,” Nikolić said. “What do I tell them when they ask how he was injured? What do I tell the police—who they’ll undoubtedly call? Without going into detail, Dr. Morin, let me say that my men and I…we wouldn’t be greeted kindly.”

  “His condition is serious,” Mason insisted. “This is gangrene. That means his arm is basically dead and rotting—it’s going to poison his blood and kill him if you delay treatment much longer. He needs immediate, emergency surgery.”

  “I know.” Nikolić nodded. “That’s why you’re here.”

  Mason blinked at him, stunned. “What?” He shook his head. “No, I…I can’t operate on this man. I couldn’t possibly…!”

  “You’re a doctor,” Nikolić said. “A surgeon.”

  “A plastic surgeon. I do tummy tucks, breast implants and liposuction—face lifts, for God’s sake!”

  “Today, you do arms.”

  “An arm he’s going to lose—don’t you understand? I mean…” He looked around, then uttered a hoarse laugh. “This is a cellar, for Christ’s sake! A goddamn dirt floor!”

  “We can move him upstairs,” Nikolić offered. “The kitchen…?”

  “I can’t operate on him,” Mason exclaimed again. “There’s no way in hell—”

  “My girlfriend, Anna, will be accompanying Dr. Averay during her work with us,” Nikolić interjected. “Piotr is her brother. You can understand, I suppose, why leaving his side was…difficult for her. Tonight, between five and six o’clock, I will call her to say that Piotr’s operation is completed and she can rest easier. But if she doesn’t hear from me…” He met Mason’s gaze gravely. “…she will remove one of Dr.
Averay’s fingers.”

  “What?” Mason drew back, eyes widening. “You wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t dare. You need her. Phillip’s research…”

  “And as you pointed out yourself, Dr. Morin, I can always find someone from Diadem to continue it should Dr. Averay prove unwilling,” Nikolić said. “Or unable.”

  The furrow between Mason’s brows deepened. “You son of a bitch…!”

  “If Anna hasn’t heard from me an hour after that, she will remove another finger. And an hour after that, another. And so on. When she runs out of fingers, she’ll move on to Dr. Averay’s toes. And from there, Anna will use her imagination…until I call to say the operation is completed.”

  “Listen to me,” Mason pleaded. “I can’t do this. It would take an entire surgical team. The operation could take a whole day, depending on—”

  “We don’t have a surgical team,” Nikolić said. “We have you, Dr. Morin. My man, Andrei, will assist you. And you don’t have a day. You have…” He made a show of glancing at his watch, then back at Mason, one bushy eyebrow raised. “Six hours.”

  * * *

  It took Nikolić and three other men to move Piotr from the dank cellar upstairs to the kitchen. Mason watched in numb disbelief as they shoved the cluttered napkins, pizza boxes, and grease-spotted fast food bags onto the floor and kicked chairs out of the way so they could drape the young man—by now moaning and writhing in pain—onto the table. Another of Nikolić’s men brought in three lamps from elsewhere in the house after Mason said there still wouldn’t be enough light for him to work by.

  “I think we have everything you need,” another man, Andrei, told him, plopping a heavy canvas bag down on the floor at Mason’s feet. He squatted and unzipped the top to reveal its contents—packages of sterile gloves, bandages, tape, suture kits, forceps, bottles of betadine, saline, and other medical supplies.

  “Do you have an autoclave in there?” Mason asked, the note of unveiled sarcasm in his voice drawing Andrei’s gaze.